About the worst way to design a game is to make it complex for no good reason, other than it looks good at first.
Rescue is a classic example of this. The player is expected to remember so much information that it rapidly becomes impossible to actually do anything. Drop the gun here, get the radio there, find the boat now, move into that square - and all at once!
It is not that this is a difficult game to beat. Complexity and difficulty are not necessarily linked. If you can stay calm long enough Rescue is simple to win.
The main enemy is the mass of detail which you are expected to handle on the way. Rescue's design is too full of "chrome" - bits and pieces added for appearance - to be classed as anything close to good.